Bad Day L.A.

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When hell breaks loose in Los Angeles, the fate of the city lies in the dirty hands of an unlikely hero.

By Dan Adams

What is it about the culture of America that makes people freak out so much over things they simply have no control over? Is it just that lack of control that is so frightening? Is it just that most of the people that came over to the States were running from something looking for safety in the first place? Whatever the reason, disasters have taken hold of our psyches lately, though admittedly not without cause. The subject matter of Bad Day L.A. is certainly something that most Americans can understand. We live in a culture of fear about terrorism and disasters when really, there's not much any of us peons can really do about either. The idea of the game is to poke fun at the culture that promotes this fear by landing every type of disastrous occasion possible (and some impossible) in Los Angeles on one fateful day. Everything from terrorists and meteor showers to zombies make Los Angeles a living hell in this comedic jab at society.

It's clear that We'd seen the game in concept form in the past and talked to designer American McGee, but this was the first time that the game was being shown playable. While we didn't put our hands on the game ourselves, it was pretty apparent that American and the rest of the development team are focused into bringing Bad Day L.A. to as many people as possible with simple to learn gameplay.

The game is a third-person action game. Players will run around as the main character and either save or kill people depending on your style. Different types of weapons ranging from the friendly fire extinguisher to the highly explosive nail clippers will all be at the player's beck and call along with some AI buddies using weapons of their own. A warning to the wicked however, the game isn't necessarily about pure carnage (though there is plenty of that) and deciding to be an evil jerk will have its consequences.

As you move through the game, there will be lots of opportunities to help people. Take the first level as an example. The main character, Anthony Williams, gives up his carefree homeless life for the life of a reluctant savior when a freak plane accident causes a aircraft full of biological toxins to crash on a freeway in Los Angeles. Anthony is thrown into the role of helper after grabbing a fire extinguisher. The extinguisher pretty much acts like a flamethrower in any other games, but instead of lighting people up, it puts them out and there's a lot of people running around on fire in this city.

Every time that Anthony helps a person out, he'll get a smiley face for a prize. That smiley face doesn't really give him anything tangible but adjusts the threat advisory shown in the upper right side of the screen. Every smiley means the threat advisory goes down, every frowny means the threat advisory goes up. As you might imagine, frowny faces are given to those of evil heart that choose to kill them some Los Angelites (is that really evil?). The level of difficulty will change according to the level the threat advisory is at. So while the it may be the point to run around and save people, it's not entirely necessary to save everyone you see, especially if you don't give a crap about how hard the game gets. Of course, as American points out, it'll eventually get to the point that it will be nearly impossible to get through the game if things get too out of hand.

The goal is to give players a choice in how they play the game in a very linear setting through a strong narrative. If you think Max Payne, you're on the right track. Levels are set up to be corridors for the simple idea that gamers don't always want to be in a sandbox. This type of gameplay experience should allow pretty much anyone to pick up a controller or mouse and keyboard and wade their way through the carnage of Los Angeles. Apparently the way girls and guys play the game show this. While guys run to find the biggest gun they can immediately and start blowing away the bad people, women will tend to run through the game using only the fire extinguisher and crowbar, saving nearly everyone.

Well&#Array; it's probably better to say "trying" to save people. It seems that Anthony isn't exactly the most successful of heroes. He'll often ending killing the people he's trying to save for an entire level, but that's part of the sick fun and humor that goes into the game. Anthony has his own way of doing things whether it be jumping up and down on a man having a heart attack to punting a baby across a chasm to his mother bringing South Park's "kick the baby" routine to mind.

In fact, South Park comes to mind a few times for the simple and understandable art style to the crazy sense of humor. This isn't a game for the timid. Aside for the blood and guts, humor tends towards the mature. At least I know I didn't tell any dirty butt plug jokes to kids back when I was a camp counselor.

That writing and humor is a major part of what makes Bad Day L.A. what it is. They've written about 25,000 words into this game to tell the story of Anthony, his little sick kid zombie, Mexican yard worker, Beverly Hills bimbo, and blood thirsty sergeant friends. For comparison, there's about 30,000 words going into the big Lionhead production Black & White 2.

We're certainly looking forward to having a chance to sit down and really absorb the humor and style on our own at which point we'll share our impressions. In the meantime, check out the new screens and look forward to getting a look at the game yourselves in the first quarter of 2006 on PC and Xbox.